The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

So while at the movies recently, I saw the preview for the movie "The Lovely Bones". I'd see this book on the Target bookshelves for months, but never gave it a second thought. Once I saw the synopsis, I had to have the book! After many library checks and a few tries at my local Half Price, I finally found a copy. (It killlls me to pay full price for just about anything.)

Side Note: After buying the book, I found a free copy online at Google Books .com.

The story follows Susie Salmon from her tragic murder, to her stay in "her the-in-between" and finally to heaven. She watches her family deal with her death. All of them suffering in their own way. Her death is the death of her family as a it was. They will never be the same again. She's torn between moving on and staying glued to the happenings down on earth. So the reader gets to see her mother, father, sister and brother all grow and move on. Susie stays closest to her sister's life because she sees her sister's life as the closest thing she could compare her could-have-been-life to. Susie is proudest of her sister and happy with her life's accomplishments and journey. Her mother and father fall apart and her baby brother is just lost in the shuffle of it all.

Susie also watches her killer. It's a weird situation for her. It is like a terrible gruesome accident on the side of the road, horrific and yet its hard to look away. She watches him hoping that he'll be caught. Hoping that no others will die and that her murder will be justified.

I enjoyed reading Alice Sebolds take on heaven as I have always imagined it very similarly. As a place where there is safety and happiness, but still a great connection to earth. My imaginary heave would be like watch television only the main characters would be all the people from my life that I'd miss so much. It was a tragic story of a child's murder, but it never felt too sad. It felt safe. Which is how I'd like to imagine death. Death should not be sad or scary, but safe.